A St Albans-based husband and wife team have marked a successful decade since their business started.

Chris Burgess set up HR Dept in November 2005 to offer a HR service to small and medium-sized businesses in South Bedfordshire and West Hertfordshire.

Following redundancy from a previous corporate role, Mr Burgess, who has been in HR for more than 30 years, spent two years building up the business before his wife Judy Crickmer joined him.

He said: “It’s all worked out quite well.

“Setting up the business was a lifestyle choice initially to fit in with childcare, with Judy working in London and me trying to develop things here.

“But in many ways we were quite lucky, because you look at the high failure rate of business start-ups and Judy was able to carry on supporting us while I was setting this up.

“Our reputation has grown and business is really good now with most new business coming from client referrals.”